Defendants Jorge Ibanez and Mauiluz Zavala were smuggling dozens of illegal workers from Peru, forcing them to work for them until they paid off their smuggling debt. The debt ranged frfom $6,000 to $13,000.
Defendants confiscated the victims passports and threatened them with the authorities in case they tried to escape. Defendants forced the aliens to work for them, as well as for other employers. The couple was arrested in June 2004. Their daughter, Evelyn Ibanez, was also charged for her role in the forced labor scheme. During the raid of three houses which the Defendants owned in Suffolk County in New York, the authorities found 69 illegal aliens living in squalid conditions. 13 of the victims were minors.
As part of their guilty pleas, the Defendants would forfeit a residence valued at $175,000 and bank accounts containing approximately $30,000 generated through their crimes.